No. 10 Rutgers field hockey sweeps No. 4 Northwestern with 3-2 OT victory

The no. 10 Rutgers field hockey team defeated no. 4 Northwestern for a second time in three days to complete a series sweep on Sunday. The Scarlet Knights won 3-2 in overtime as Katie Larmour delivered the dramatic game winner.

Unlike in Friday’s 2-1 victory when Rutgers scored twice in the first three minutes of the game before the defense held strong, Northwestern jumped out to an early lead on Sunday. Bente Baekers scored 3:40 into the game and the Wildcats held the lead until the final minutes of the second period. The Scarlet Knights tied it at the 28:54 mark as Liz Romano for a second straight game. She scored at the top off of a corner and it was assisted by Larmour and Gracey Butsack, who was honored before the game as the lone departing senior on the team.

Eleven minutes into the third period saw RU take the lead on a goal from Brody Molyneaux with the assist from Kassidy Shetler. However, Northwestern tied it two minutes into the fourth period as Ana Medina Garcia scored on a putback after two Rutgers saves, one from Goalkeeper Gianna Glatz and one by the defense.

The game went into overtime before Larmour scored off of a corner that was assisted by Milena Redlingshoefer less than four minutes into the extra session.

“We talked about what we were going to do if we had that first corner opportunity in overtime,” Larmour explained. “I saw the opportunity and I took. I’m just glad that we were able to put the ball in the back of the net, and ultimately it was a real team effort to get us to that point.”

Northwestern outshot RU 9-7 and 7-3 with shots on goal, but Glatz made four saves in addition to the one team save in the victory. The Scarlet Knights held the Wildcats to just three goals in two games after the entered the weekend leading the Big Ten with a 2.7 goals per game average.

Rutgers has now won four consecutive games against top ten ranked opponents and the last two are the highest ranked wins in program history. It also was the eighth victory in program history over a top ten opponent, all of which have happened in the last three seasons.

The Scarlet Knights are now 9-3 overall and 6-2 in Big Ten play heading into the final weekend of the regular season on the road against no. 11 Maryland (6-6), who were swept this weekend by Big Ten regular season champion Michigan. The Big Ten Tournament begins April 20 in Iowa City and Rutgers is currently battling Iowa for the no. 2 seed.